Gandalf - my new Steemit hero - everyone needs to read this! For your sake and his.
Gandalf in steemit.chat - an extraordinary very human experience
I am, in digital terms, a dinosaur ... well nearly. I was born before JFK was assassinated, there's a clue.
My experience in digital media is better than most social media users, having worked in the advertising side of the industry. So, to any smug programmer, beware ... I know your game; and I suspect that this is how I came across to Gandalf.
Gandalf is a "techy", as I call them, the programmers who ensure functionality at the business end of a website. He is much, much more besides.
Last night he was on duty in steemit.chat and I was looking for answers whilst displaying my considerable knowledge. His thinking deserved to have included the term "arrogant fuck".
He read my rant and paused. I watched him start a reply three times ... "gandalf is typing" my screen announced. Gandalf stopped typing. He restarted. He stopped.
"I used to work in Digital Media, you know" ... Gandalf did not write "arrogant fuck".
I sent him one of my posts about the platform not functioning. Guess what I got back!
This is direct from steemit.chat - please check and say hi to Gandalf when you do!
gandalf 2:51 AM
oh, upvoted, agree mostly
except that non of those companies "provide experiences which enhance the enjoyment of life" (for me, of course)
but I get general idea
(no offence caused, don't worry)
why you can't change the pic?
you mean pic on steemit?
oh, I see that's not displaying, and I know why, and you right that it shouldn't bother you, you should just be able to pick one and it just should work
Just the beginning, Steemistanites, just the beginning!
Screen pinged as if I was in an airport, 'you have a private message'.
Rather than copy and paste the transcript, this is what Gandalf did.
He went to my Steemit page and saw what I had been trying to do.
He found the Imgur image and explained why it was not working and removed me from any blame.
He told me how to replace the image associated with my account.
He asked if I had any other questions - even if I did I would have said 'no'.
He sent me a smiley face emoticon which I appreciated for the first time EVER!
He wished me a goodnight.
It was well after 3am
I know that I shall be repeating this story many times over. I hope you choose to do likewise.
Gandalf, you are a super hero. Feel the Steem - there are not enough Gandalfs but this Gandalf makes up for that.
The post I sent to Gandalf, see it here: Is Steemit Lost in Translation?
Follow me at @ebryans - more importantly, follow Gandalf at @gandalf
Previous posts:
Jargon Busters Series:
Jargon Busters 1
Jargon Buster 2
Jargon Busters 3
Jargon Busters 4
Steemit Commentaries and Observations:
Why Steemit's success is down to us
Redistribution of Steem Power
The power of money supply
Is Steemit ready to grow?
Topic and Tag Trouble
Is Steemit Lost in Translation?
Observations on the US election November 2016:
Will venting spleen change a decision made?
Conservation and Preservation:
Panda Bears - are they worth it?
Gandalf is a wizard at this truly a hero, upvoted.
Thank you @simonjay, though the praise goes to the wizard!
This post has been ranked within the top 80 most undervalued posts in the first half of Dec 02. We estimate that this post is undervalued by $7.54 as compared to a scenario in which every voter had an equal say.
See the full rankings and details in The Daily Tribune: Dec 02 - Part I. You can also read about some of our methodology, data analysis and technical details in our initial post.
If you are the author and would prefer not to receive these comments, simply reply "Stop" to this comment.
By the way, Gandalf (from Steemit chat) is one of the Steem witnesses. (His witness name is @gtg.) If you think he is doing a great job, you should vote for him here:
https://steemit.com/~witnesses
Many thanks for your attentiveness! There a few like you but the effect it the effect of many thousand. This is - after all - Social Media!!
And yes, Gandalf/gtg is very much on my radar as is an exceedingly good man! I did my witness voting under his guidance a few days ago.
Just a radical thought, why is it not steemit who owns all the witnessing?
There would be so much less politics amidst these paragons!
If Steemit owned the witnessing, then they would be able to control what goes into the blockchain. This includes being able to remove/change posts, or even create fake financial transactions.
Steemit is modeled off of Bitcoin, which uses a formula called "Proof of Work". The BTC network is 100% run by "miners" that do the computations. Basically every time a miner mines a block they are validating that all the previous miners did their job correctly, as well as logging all the new transactions into the network's database.
There are lots of people on the internet that would love to be able to mine a block and introduce a fake transaction that says 10,000 BTC were transferred to their account. If someone was able to do that, then the whole system would collapse. Nobody would use BTC because there would be tons of 'fake' money floating around.
The reason BTC 'works' is because the whole system is setup to prevent cheating. If an individual miner tried to produce a fake block, all the other miners out there would be able to prove that it was invalid. This would cause them to lose out on their mining reward (which at today's prices is close to $1,000).
In order to be successful in updating the blockchain with incorrect data, you would somehow need to get 51% of the other miners to validate your 'lie' in order for the network to believe it was 'truth'.
Getting 51% of the BTC network to agree to validate a false transaction is basically impossible because there are so many different people out there mining. How would someone be able to organize 51% of a world of miners together - in order to cheat - without getting caught?
In theory it could happen though - which is something @dantheman has written a few articles about.
The Steem blockchain is different in that it uses "Proof of Stake" instead of "Proof of Work". What that means is instead of having millions of random people on the internet producing blocks, the block production is limited to 21 miners. The top 19 witnesses, plus one backup witness, plus one "proof of work" miner - make up a round of block production for Steem.
In order to produce a fake block in Steem, you technically only need to 'corrupt' 11 people.
This is arguably still very hard though, because most of the witnesses are elected by the community because they are trustworthy people. If they were to get caught trying to cheat, they would for sure be voted out. I know personally if I were ever approached to attempt to produce an invalid block - I would for sure say 'no' and would publicly publish info about anybody I knew was involved.
This makes me a far more educated person! Thank you. My comment was made in ignorance as I was referring more to the individual nuances of a witness rather than their "proof of stake" - hence my error in observation!
Why are you not a witness? Or is it a time thing?
Any new person would be bamboozled by much of this and have a decision to make like Brexit! They don't know what they are voting for!!
Thanks again mate
New word: 'steemmate'
I am actually. I am #53 though, so I don't show up in the "top 50" list on Steemit.com.
One other thing too - even if someone managed to corrupt 11 of the 21 block producers and produce a fake block, there would still very likely be a "big deal" made of it. Any of the other 10 could detect that something went wrong, and could look into what happened and publish their findings. It would become an argument between two camps between whose block was 'valid' - but it would be a very public and visable argument. It is not the type of thing that would 'quietly' happen.
I shall see if I can get a vote in for you then ... I am SO sorry! I had no realisation.
That's OK! I actually skipped my witness report this week (due to the Christmas holiday) so I don't think I have posted anything witness related since we met.
I appreciate your support :)
I found you! Most unfair for over 50s - almost might as well not be there! One for the policy unit to discuss - ABC, would be better than 123 which suggests a ranking as well, though this does make you AAA(53), following AX(52)! Or should it be CA? Over to you for that one!
Cool :)
Yeah, comes with the territory. Those under 50 have to do more work to "prove themselves" and earn their way into the top 50.
Sorry, I didn't get that one. You mean use letters instead of numbers instead of the order?
Yes, if a witness is listed as number '1' in the list, there is an implied status attached. If you were to analyse the votes, I would have a strong wager that there are more votes for the top 20 than any others, ipso facto! People are lazy and most do not know what they are really voting for!
Just thoughts ...
There is an implied status. Whoever is #1 has the most votes :)
You can see how many votes each witness has (measured in "MVests of Steem Power) under the "Approval" column here:
https://steemd.com/witnesses
How would it look if I put a 'PS' at the bottom of my posts directing people to the witness vote page, endorsing gtg and you?
I am not suggesting anything other than expressing my own integrity!
Equally, I do not want to cause any political embarrassment to you. If you say 'no', I am going to understand and feel no sense of rejection. There are clearly some pretty angry, vitriolic people around ... but ... did you see that @curie has changed its ways?
Fine with me :) I appreciate the endorsement!
No, I hadn't noticed. What did they change?